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BSAC London Branch
The BSAC London Branch is the original branch No.1 of the British Sub-Aqua Club. The branch continues as an active, member driven club to train and undertake scuba diving within the UK and around the world. The branch is currently located in the basement of the Seymour Leisure Centre in Marylebone, central London. The branch meets weekly at 7pm on Tuesdays and retires to the Harcourt Arms nearby after training or playing Octopush in the swimming pool. Divers trained by the London Branch have included Arthur C Clarke, Kenneth More, Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, Lord Hailsham, Esther Williams, Michael Brennan (actor), Mike Brennan, Anthony Daniels, Tony Daniels, Tim Smit and Rowena Kerr. The current branch chairman is Emma Lawrence and diving officer is Alex Soubeyrand. History The inaugural meeting of the branch was held on 15 October 1953 hosted by Oscar Gugen at the Waldorf Hilton, Waldorf Hotel, attended by some 50 enthusiasts. The BSAC London Branch becam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Romans as '' Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national government and parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London, governed by the Greater London Authority.The Greater London Authority consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The London Mayor is distinguished fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timeline Of Underwater Technology
The timeline of underwater diving technology is a chronological list of notable events in the history of the development of underwater diving equipment. With the partial exception of breath-hold diving, the development of underwater diving capacity, scope, and popularity, has been closely linked to available technology, and the physiological constraints of the underwater environment. Primary constraints are * the provision of breathing gas to allow endurance beyond the limits of a single breath, * safely decompressing from high underwater pressure to surface pressure, * the ability to see clearly enough to effectively perform the task, * and sufficient mobility to get to and from the workplace. Pre-industrial * Ancient Roman and Greek era.: There have been many instances of men swimming or diving for combat, but they always had to hold their breath, and had no diving equipment, except sometimes a hollow plant stem used as a snorkel. * About 500 BC: (Information originally ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octopush
Underwater hockey (UWH), (also known as Octopush in the United Kingdom) is a globally played limited-contact sport in which two teams compete to manoeuvre a puck across the bottom of a swimming pool into the opposing team's goal by propelling it with a hockey stick (or pusher). A key challenge of the game is that players are not able to use breathing devices such as scuba gear whilst playing, they must hold their breath. The game originated in England in 1954 when Alan Blake, a founder of the newly formed Southsea Sub-Aqua Club, invented the game he called Octopush as a means of keeping the club's members interested and active over the cold winter months when open-water diving lost its appeal. Underwater hockey is now played worldwide, with the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques, abbreviated CMAS, as the world governing body. The first Underwater Hockey World Championship was held in Canada in 1980 after a false start in 1979 brought about by internationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rigid-hulled Inflatable Boat
A rigid inflatable boat (RIB), also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull bottom joined to side-forming air tubes that are inflated with air to a high pressure so as to give the sides resilient rigidity along the boat's topsides. The design is stable, light, fast and seaworthy. The inflated collar acts as a life jacket, ensuring that the vessel retains its buoyancy, even if the boat is taking on water. The RIB is an evolutionary development of the inflatable boat with a rubberized fabric bottom that is stiffened with flat boards within the collar to form the deck or floor of the boat. History Origins in Wales The combination of rigid hull and large inflatable buoyancy tubes had been conceived by a Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) team working under Inspector of Lifeboats Dag Pike in 1964 as a means of reducing the wear and tear of the fabric botto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Westminster City Council
Westminster City Council is the local authority for the City of Westminster in Greater London, England. The city is divided into 20 wards, each electing three councillors. The council is currently composed of 31 Labour Party members and 23 Conservative Party members. The council was created by the London Government Act 1963 and replaced three local authorities: Paddington Metropolitan Borough Council, St Marylebone Metropolitan Borough Council and Westminster Borough Council. History There have previously been a number of local authorities responsible for the Westminster area. The current local authority was first elected in 1964, a year before formally coming into its powers and prior to the creation of the City of Westminster on 1 April 1965. Westminster City Council replaced Paddington Metropolitan Borough Council, St Marylebone Metropolitan Borough Council and the Westminster City Council which had responsibility for the earlier, smaller City of Westminster. All three had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timothy Mo
Timothy Peter Mo (born 30December 1950) is a British Asian novelist. Born to a British mother and a Hong Kong father, Mo lived in Hong Kong until the age of 10, when he moved to Britain. Educated at Mill Hill School and St John's College, Oxford, Mo worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist. His works have won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction), and three of his novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Mo was also the recipient of the 1992 E. M. Forster Award. His novel ''An Insular Possession'' (1986) was among the contenders in ''The Telegraph'''s list of the 10 all-time greatest Asian novels. In the early 1990s Mo became increasingly mistrustful of his publishers and increasingly outspoken about the publishing industry in general. Since 1994 when he rejected a £125,000 advance from Random House for his next novel, he has self-published his books under the label "Paddle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octopussy
''Octopussy'' is a 1983 spy film and the thirteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. It is the sixth to star Roger Moore as the MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by John Glen and the screenplay was written by George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum and Michael G. Wilson. The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection ''Octopussy and The Living Daylights'', although the film's plot is mostly original. It does, however, contain a scene adapted from the Fleming short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions of ''Octopussy and The Living Daylights''). The events of the short story "Octopussy" form part of the title character's background and are recounted by her in the film. In ''Octopussy'', Bond is assigned the task of following a megalomaniacal Soviet general ( Steven Berkoff) who is stealing jewellery and art objects from the Kremlin art repository. This leads Bond to a weal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Powerboat
A motorboat, speedboat or powerboat is a boat that is exclusively powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit. An inboard-outboard contains a hybrid of an inboard and an outboard, where the internal combustion engine is installed inside the boat, and the gearbox and propeller are outside. There are two configurations of an inboard, V-drive and direct drive. A direct drive has the powerplant mounted near the middle of the boat with the propeller shaft straight out the back, where a V-drive has the powerplant mounted in the back of the boat facing backwards having the shaft go towards the front of the boat then making a ''V'' towards the rear. Overview A motorboat has one or more engines that propel the vessel over the top of the water. Boat engines vary in shape, size, and type. Engines are installed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The 60% smaller island of Ireland is to the west—these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, form the British Isles archipelago. Connected to mainland Europe until 9,000 years ago by a landbridge now known as Doggerland, Great Britain has been inhabited by modern humans for around 30,000 years. In 2011, it had a population of about , making it the world's third-most-populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The term "Great Britain" is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales, including their component adjoining islands. Great Britain and Northern Ireland now constitute the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Magellan's circumnavigation, Magellan–Elcano expedition, which sailed from Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain in 1519 and returned in 1522, after crossing the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pacific, and Indian Ocean, Indian oceans. Since the rise of commercial aviation in the late 20th century, circumnavigating Earth is straightforward, usually taking days instead of years. Today, the challenge of circumnavigating Earth has shifted towards human and technological endurance, speed, and List of circumnavigations#Miscellaneous, less conventional methods. Etymology The word ''circumnavigation'' is a noun formed from the verb ''circumnavigate'', from the past participle of the Latin verb '':wikt:circumnav ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arts Council Of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. It was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England (now Arts Council England), the Scottish Arts Council (later merged into Creative Scotland), and the Arts Council of Wales. At the same time the National Lottery was established and these three arts councils, plus the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, became distribution bodies. History In January 1940, during the Second World War, the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), was appointed to help promote and maintain British culture. Chaired by Lord De La Warr, President of the Board of Education, the council was government-funded and after the war was renamed the Arts Council of Great Britain. Reginald Jacques was appointed musical director, with Sir Henry Walford Davies and George Dyson also involved. John Denison took over after the war. A royal charter was grante ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
